Online Festival Waves of Light: Megalopolis
OPPIDUM MAGNUM / WAVES OF LIGHT PPC: MEGALOPOLIS
by Wiktor Mastela • Artistic Curation: Giorgos Koumendakis • Power Plant of Megalopolis PPC
9'
From to
Description
The Greek National Opera’s online festival Waves of Light, in collaboration with the PPC and curated by Giorgos Koumendakis, features the first series of site-specific performances inspired by the Megalopolis Steam Power Station.
Oppidum Magnum
Wiktor Mastela - Department of Music Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
Oppidum Magnum is a sound-driven exploration of a post-apocalyptic, industrial world. Through the collection of unprocessed mechanical sounds and ‘visceral’ echoes of the past, an otherworldly beauty emerges from desolation. The piece combines electronic and acoustic elements, creating a riveting audiovisual experience that invites viewers to contemplate the tension between humanity and nature, along with the industry’s impact on the planet.The goal is to invite the public to engage in more attentive listening, highlighting the extinction not only of the natural environment but also of the sounds of existence. The visual component challenges viewers with intense disfiguration of images, creating a disturbance that forces them to reconsider their visual dominance. Oppidum Magnum explores what industry leaves behind and how artistic expression can examine these marks of absence, presenting viewers with questions about the global environmental decline.
The Greek National Opera assigned the organisation of a cross-university / interdisciplinary arts workshop focused on the Megalopolis Steam Power Station to the Department of Performing and Digital Arts at the University of the Peloponnese, involving eight university arts departments from across Greece. As part of the online festival titled Waves of Light, 20 young artists and artistic teams from university departments throughout Greece drew inspiration from the striking sites of the old PPC factory in Megalopolis to create 20 new site-specific digital works for GNO TV, the GNO’s digital platform. These works are grouped into various genres that fall within the broader fields of performing, visual, and digital arts. The music and scripts in these works are inspired by the spaces, history, and people who worked there.
Participating in this workshop were students from the following departments: Department of Music Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Department of Visual and Applied Arts (University of Western Macedonia), Department of Culture and Creative Media and Industries (University of Thessaly), Department of Theatre Studies (University of Patras), Department of Sound and Image Arts (Ionian University – undergraduate and postgraduate programmes), and the Athens School of Fine Arts.
PPC, a leader in Greece’s electrification through its emblematic factories, has evolved into an active cultural agent, offering its historical sites as a canvas for contemporary artistic creation. Through the Waves of Light online festival, PPC contributes to repurposing industrial landmarks into vibrant reference points between the past and the future, where energy meets art.
Creative team – Cast
CONCEPT - CREATION:
WIKTOR MASTELA
CAMERA OPERATOR:
CHRISTINA GEORGIOU